Neil Parry says Scottish Cup tie will clash with son Max's birthday

Albion Rovers goalkeeper Neil Parry admits he may have to put his son’s first birthday celebrations on hold after his side were drawn against Rangers in the Scottish Cup quarter-finals.

The last eight tie is scheduled to take place on Saturday, March 8, the same day his son Max will celebrate his first birthday, but the game could be put back 24 hours depending on live TV coverage.

However,
Parry – who helped the Cliftonhill side earn the right to face Rangers with a 2-0 fifth round win over Stenhousemuir on Saturday – hopes to make that weekend a double celebration by dumping Ally McCoist’s men out
of the competition.

The 28-year-old, from West Mains, and his partner Gillian are now waiting to see how the television schedules shape up.

And
Parry, who will discover the game’s fate when the televised matches are
announced on Wednesday, February 19, told the News: “Before we beat Stenny, Gillian and I were planning on having a party for Max on the Saturday.

“But now we have this massive game with Rangers and everyone wants to be a part of it.

“At
Albion Rovers you don’t expect to be part of games like that and it’s the first time in 80 years the club has reached the quarter-finals.

“Max
is a bit too young to come to the game, but Gillian will be coming to support me so we will need to get someone in the family to look after him for the day.

“It will be
a real shame leaving him on his first birthday and if the game is on the Saturday we will have to put his birthday party on hold until the Sunday.”

Parry is yet to concede a goal in the Scottish Cup this season after seeing off challenges from Spartans, Deveronvale, Motherwell and now Stenhousemuir with his clean sheet intact.

And it’s not a run he is keen to give up on.

“It’s
amazing we’ve not conceded a goal yet, but the boys at the back have been superb and on Saturday I didn’t have a save to make against Stenny,” he added.

“And I’ll be going to Ibrox aiming to keep that record going.

“You
never know what can happen in the cup – we saw that at the weekend with
Celtic and Hibs going out – and although we will be massive underdogs against Rangers, stranger things have happened.”

The
Rovers keeper was one of seven EK players in the squad on Saturday with
Barry Russell, Ciaran Donnelly, Scott Chaplain, Mark McGuigan, Chris Dallas and Peter Innes (unused sub) all on the team sheet.

And Parry reckons that connection is key to the club’s success of late.

He
added: “The manager (James Ward) has said he wants a close-knit group that fight for each other and being such good mates really helps.

“A
few of the EK boys went for a few beers after the game. It’s fantastic celebrating moments like this with your mates because these moments don’t come around very often.”